The players are introduced in the rain before the game between the Pinson Valley Indians and the John Carroll Cavalier girls soccer teams during the AHSAA 2014 Soccer State Tournament Friday, MAy 9, 2014 in Huntsville, Ala. (Eric Schultz / eschultz@al.com)

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – In the one-goal win last Saturday that propelled John Carroll into the state semifinals, coach David DiPiazza noted that “they were really nervous.”

That was not the case Friday afternoon in a lopsided 5-0 victory over Pinson Valley in the girls class 5A championships, a game in which the Cavaliers were so dominant they outshot Pinson Valley 37-1.

“We were more relaxed,” DiPiazza said. “They were relaxed and ready to go. With Pinson Valley being in Birmingham, we’ve seen them play before and that helped us relax a lot.”

Another breather was meeting “our goal … to be able to play 21 girls. We were very fortunate to get all our players in,” DiPiazza said. Meanwhile, it was hardly a breather for John Carroll’s opponent in Saturday’s 10 a.m. finals. Athens had to go to a shootout to defeat St. Paul’s.

It took John Carroll until the 17:51 mark to score, on a Moffitt shot, but that triggered an avalanche of three more goals in the next 13 minutes.

“The key was to play the way we’ve played all year,” DiPiazza said. “We’ve had three forwards with 20-something goals. We wanted to attack, keep the ball on their side of the field and hopefully score some goals.”